Spy Author: James Bond a 'Neo-Fascistic Gangster'

James Bond is no spy. This was the decades-old declaration of John Le Carré, a
thriller-writer of the period of Ian Fleming but who preferred a
slightly different writing style. Anita Singh digs up a BBC interview
with Le Carré from the 1960s in which Le Carré declares that he
"dislike[s] Bond," who is not so much a spy as "some kind of
international gangster." He has no "political context. It's of no
interest to Bond who, for instance, is president of the United States
or who is president of the Union of Soviet Republics." In fact, says Le
Carré, the success of the Bond franchise is built entirely on the
"consumer goods ethic." Here's the idea:

That everything around
you, all the dull things of life, are suddenly animated by this
wonderful cache of espionage--the things on our desk that could
explode, our ties which could suddenly take photographs. These give to
a drab and materialistic existence a kind of magic which doesn't
otherwise exist ... a base, a low magic. They even are a kind of social
soporific because they convince us that the material things which so
desperately need animation are themselves in fact sufficient.

Singh
also uncovers a section of the interview in which Le Carré goes so far
as to suggest the character itself is a consumer goods-driven
simpleton, "neo-fascistic and totally materialist"--a man who "would
have gone through the same antics for any country, really, if the girls
had been so pretty and the Martinis so dry." At another point Le Carré
complains about the public making a competition out of the writings of
the various spy-novel writers. "One is drawn into a race which for my
part I find abhorrent," he says. "It isn't a question of knocking other
people," he continues, before noting: "I don't happen to like Fleming."

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.